


The Skin Off My Back

by AkiRah



Series: Trust Excercises [1]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Cannibalism, Friendship, Gen, Gore, Resurrection, Sacrifice, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:34:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26749573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AkiRah/pseuds/AkiRah
Summary: Trapped on an inhospitable ice world, a guardian makes a sacrifice in order to save her friend from more starvation-induced trauma while they wait for rescue.
Relationships: The Drifter & Female Guardian (Destiny)
Series: Trust Excercises [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1985306
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	The Skin Off My Back

**Author's Note:**

> This might end up being part of a series about my guardian. So, stay tuned for that if I ever actually get it written.

The rations had run out a week ago. Yonny remembered The Drifter’s stories about his rising, how his ghost had revived him again and again and he was always starving. They’d known each other for a while, just a drop in the bucket of The Drifter’s vast years, but she looked into his eyes and saw that he was hunted. He was warring with something and she could guess what it was. 

Honestly it was a miracle he hadn’t shot her yet but she kept Nick tucked away where he was safe. She turned away from the Drifter to summon her ghost. She squeezed the red-streaked grey shell. “I can save us. Don’t pick me up til rescue gets here.” 

“Yonny—” Nick objected. 

“Trust me.” 

The ghost made a disgruntled noise and— 

“Drifter?” she said, fear edging the name. “You’ll eat anything, right? Nick can rez me after, but this way we both live.” She put the barrel of her hand-cannon in her mouth, squeezing her eyes closed as she squeezed the trigger. 

All she saw was stars.

* * *

Drifter was silent for a long moment. He knew how these tense survival moments went, he’d been through enough of them for that. Or he thought he’d known. When Yonny put the barrel in her mouth instead of pointing it at him, Drifter stared. When she’d pulled the trigger, he’d gone temporarily deaf. 

_You’ll eat anything, right?_

He waited for her ghost, the thing’s name was Nick, to revive her. But it didn’t. 

Yonny slumped to the side, smearing blood along the snowy encampment they’d turned into the wall of their camp. Anything to keep the wind off. 

_I can save us_.

Drifter had assumed that she was talking about herself and her ghost, but the longer he stared at her, the more he was forced to contend with the horrible reality that she’d meant _all_ of them. 

His stomach twisted with hunger. He looked at Yonny and tried to see a hunk of meat instead of his… friend. He could call her his friend while she was dead. Another twist and he moved over to her. He stripped her, rather than just using the knife, and folded her clothes in a pile where she could grab them later. He left her bra and underpants on out of respect, though he already accepted that he might need the fat of her breasts. 

Fat allowed for the absorption of nutrients. Humans need fat to survive. 

She’d called for rescue and he knew The Young Wolf (what a stupid fucking nickname) wouldn’t leave her for long. 

Drifter started small. He sliced down from the bottom of her breast bone down to the tops of her black panties. Red pooled over her sides to stain the snow pink and crimson. Leaving his gloves on, he dug through her body cavity to find her right kidney. He speared it and propped it over ~~their~~ the fire until the meat was charred on the outside and pink in the middle. His teeth sunk into the meat, the char and the iron making it bitter. But it was food. 

* * *

Drifter wrenched the rib away from the others. He grit his teeth and the bone popped. Holding his prize, Drifter took his knife and began to scrape the marrow out. He avoided looking at the carcass (stubbornly refusing to call it _Yonny’s corpse_ because the thought turned his stomach) unless he needed more meat. 

She was pretty much decimated. The meat of her thighs carved off. Her iron-rich organs, all save her heart, had been plundered. He had broken her ribs for the marrow, leaving the sharp points pointing skyward. 

Rescue would be there soon. He and Yonny would figure where they stood after… this. 

He’d been doing his best to clean the blood off his hands, washing them and the gloves in their camp pot. He’d had to cut off her left breast for the fat, not to eat but because the yellow-white tallow would keep his fire going. 

A grisly scene. The blood streaked snow made it all worse. The mostly naked body of a woman, her ribs cracked open, her legs and arms flayed to the bone. Bones for the marrow. A boot print on her right shin where he’d held it down while breaking it open. 

His… friend… messily butchered for meat. 

But he would eat anything. 

He heard the roar of an engine and watched as Yonny’s ghost appeared and revived her.

Yonny shivered in the cold, standing there in nothing but her underwear. “Where’s my gear?” she asked through chattering teeth. She looked straight at the Drifter, like she didn’t want to see anything else. He pointed to the pile of her equipment and clothes and turned away as she dressed. 

The roaring stopped as the jumpship landed. 

They were saved. 

She had saved them. 

And when he breathed in, he could taste her blood on his breath. 


End file.
